Cognos Analytics 11.0.4 - Informix Service Starts and Stops immediately

[paulsimon]

Hi

I did the "Ready to Run" installation of Cognos Analytics 11.0.4 on a Windows 2012 Server. The problem I have is that whenever I try to start the Informix IDS -ol_cognoscm Service it just says that the Service Started then Stopped.

I have logged on to Windows as the Informix User to verify that there are no issues there.

In the Application Event Viewer I get ol_cognoscm : Only members of IXDBSA group (Informix-Admin, by default) can start IBM Informix Dynamic Server. I have checked in Active Directory. The Informix user is a member of the Informix-Admin Group. This was all set up by the installation. Does it need an IXDBSA alias or is that referring to some sort of Informix internal security group?

I looked at the informix olsrvice.log file which has the message

21:39:59 Service was shut-down externally. 21:39:59 ol_cognoscm: Failure in SuMain(): WaitForMultipleObjects(): 0: The operation completed successfully.

It probably should say SubMain but that doesn't really help. Does this give anyone any clues as to what is wrong?

I looked at the ol_cognoscm.cmd file in the informix directory. The only thing that looks odd is that the CLASSPATH is being set to ...\informix\extend\krakatoa\... but there is no krakatoa directory under extend. Does this matter?

Regards
Paul Simon

[paulsimon]

Hi

Someone suggested trying to run oninit from a DOS Command started with Run as Administrator. I tried that and got

Message 71578 not found

Does that mean anything to anyone?

Apparently the fact that Krakatowa is missing doesn't matter as it is something related to datablade which isn't needed.

Regards

Paul Simon

[paulsimon]

Hi

Further information. Apparently onit should run be at an Informix Command Prompt. I don't know how to start an Informix Command Prompt. Apparently to start an Informix Command Prompt you run

starts ol_cognoscm

from the \Informix\bin folder. However that thinks for a few seconds and then returns to a normal DOS prompt.

I tried running the ol_cognoscm.cmd file in the \Informix folder to set the environment variables. I then run starts ol_cognoscm but with the same result.

I tried just running oninit with the environment variables set but this produces the error

Only members of IXDBSA group (Informix-Admin, by default) can start IBM Informix Dynamic Server.

The Informix user is a member of the Informix-Admin Group in a Active Directory.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be wrong?

Regards

Paul Simon

[paulsimon]

Hi

Further information

The root of the problem seems to be that the informix user needs to be a local user. However, we are a small company and the server is also the domain controller. In Windows 2012 you cannot create a local user on a domain controller. It seems that the Cognos Analytics install routine has created the informix user as a domain user rather than a local user. The group Informix-Admin has been created as a local group. This seems to prevent things from working.

This may be down to my lack of Windows Security Knowledge, but all I want to do is to develop some reports on top of TM1. This should not be that difficult.

Can anyone think of any other options other than working out how to set up SQL Server as the Content Store?

Regards

Paul Simon

[paulsimon]

Resolution / Workaround

The problem is that Informix needs to have the informix user as a local user. However, Windows 2012 will not allow the creation of a local user on a server that is also the domain controller. This isn't a problem for a larger organisation. However, for a small business where the server and domain controller are likely to one and the same, it is a roadblock.

The only way forward was to abandon Informix as the Content Store.

I had a DB2 Server setup from a previous 10.2 installation. I followed instructions on the IBM Web Site to install the Content Store on that via Cognos Configuration. After that I was able to logon to Cognos Analytics.

This query is now closed, but hopefully this will prevent anyone else from going down the same blind alley.

Regards

Paul Simon